Various aircraft are equipped with on-board air-cooling systems to cool electronic equipment or electrical systems on the aircraft, such as the aircraft's radar system. The air flow is routed through the aircraft through various ducts to the hot electrical components that need to be cooled. The air absorbs heat from these components, and then the heated air is released from the aircraft as exhaust.
However, some electrical systems benefit from or require liquid cooling. For example, some phased (or “active”) antenna array radar systems benefit from liquid cooling, which enables the electrical components of the radar system to operate at higher power, as compared to air-cooled systems, without overheating. Therefore, to install such a radar system on an air-cooled aircraft, a liquid-to-air cooling system is needed, in order to transfer heat from the liquid-cooled radar system to the on-board air flow.
While such liquid-to-air cooling systems have been designed to enable a liquid-cooled component to be installed on an air-cooled platform, these systems are limited by the available amount of air flow onboard the platform. In some situations, the available air flow is not able to remove sufficient heat from the liquid cooling loop, and the electrical components in the liquid-cooled system overheat, or are operated at sub-optimal power levels to avoid overheating. Accordingly there is still a need for an improved liquid-to-air cooling system for installing a liquid-cooled electrical system on an air-cooled platform.